Amanda Knox's Ex-Boyfriend Has No Regrets About Meeting Her
Raphaele Sollecito has no regrets about meeting Amanda Knox.
Sept. 19, 2012— -- Raffaele Sollecito said he was nervous before his reunion with Amanda Knox, afraid that seeing his ex-girlfriend would bring back the nightmare of the two of them spending four years in an Italian prison, accused of murder.
"I was stuck a little bit. I was nervous," he told Katie Couric today on "Katie," Couric's new show.
Sollecito was afraid Knox would be like a "ghost," that her image would "bring up to me the image of the nightmare" of being in prison.
Speaking in careful English, Sollecito told of how he and Knox were dating for only nine days in Perugia, Italy, when they were both arrested in 2007 for the murder of Knox's English roommate, Meredith Kercher. They were both convicted of the murder and given long prison sentences.
They were freed on appeal in 2011, and Knox quickly left the country. Sollecito and Knox still face an appeal by prosecutors, who want the two resentenced to life in prison.
Sollecito, 27, and Knox, 25, reunited in her hometown of Seattle earlier this year, and his fears of a return to his nightmare quickly dissolved.
"When she hugged me, I realized she was not my ghost, my nightmare," Sollecito told Couric.
Sollecito said the two kept in touch almost weekly during their years in prison, exchanging notes, magazines, books and stories about their families and friends.
They continue to correspond by email and Skype. He said the last time he and Knox Skyped, "She sang a song for me."
Despite the hellish four years of prison and the threat of life in prison, Sollecito said he rejected advice from his father and friends to abandon Knox. And when Couric asked whether he regrets having met Knox, he replied with a firm "No. It was not her fault. It was the fault of the detectives."
A third person, Rudy Guede, was also convicted of Kercher's murder and is serving a 16-year prison term.
Sollecito has written a book titled "Honor Bound, My Journey to Hell and Back With Amanda Knox."
Knox is also under contract for a book that Harper Collins is expected to publish next year.
Sollecito said that he hopes the Kercher family gets answers about their daughter's death because "the truth ... would allow me to move on too."